


Two Words

by capgal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capgal/pseuds/capgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weary soldiers, Arlington, and a grave that holds not a body but the dead stories of the past.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>“Come—come back, Bucky. Come home with me. <em>Please</em>."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Words

It was hard to tell when Steve started preferring night to day. Maybe it was when he drove a plane into an ice shelf, the spread of painful white the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes on everything he had called home. Or maybe it was when he opened his eyes to a world crazed with light, full of lit screens and flashing colours, where even the smallest hours of the night were flooded with the glare of headlights and the blare of electric billboards. All Steve knew was that the darkness settling around him as the twilight sun gave up its last rays felt more familiar and comforting than anything in the massive apartment overlooking Manhattan that he was supposed to call home now.

Besides, Arlington was quiet at night—and it was so much easier to pretend in the dark. It was so much easier to pretend that he was just another soldier mourning a lost friend when the headstone was shielded in shadows. That the grave at his feet wasn’t cold and empty, that the man he mourned hadn’t been gone seventy years, that he wasn’t still wandering somewhere, a ghost unknown by all but a few. It was easier to pretend that this wasn’t crazy, that _he_ wasn’t crazy, chasing after the shadow of a long-dead best friend who had shot him three times just weeks ago. (Despite what Natasha and Sam might say, he wasn’t completely delusional—he just didn’t care that Bucky had almost killed him. It didn’t _matter_.)

It was easier to pretend in the dark, so Steve stood silent as the darkness grew thicker and tried not to think too much.

“You’re not going to get anywhere staring at my grave, you know.”

It took everything Steve had not to jump and spin around. As it were, trained reflexes had him dropping into a battle-ready stance, fingers grasping for a shield that wasn’t at his back. Only an instinct deeper than all his battle training, deeper even than his need to breathe, kept his feet rooted and his gaze fixed on the gravestone.

“Bucky—?” he breathed, afraid that his voice alone might shatter the illusion, leaving him alone again with only the ghost of memories lingering at his back. His muscles tensed and shuddered against his bones, torn between the desperate longing to turn around and reach for Bucky and the terrified certainty that Bucky would vanish back into the shadows he had slipped out of if Steve dared to face him.

“Who else d’you think would chase your stupid ass all the way from New York to Virginia?” Bucky’s voice tapered off in a chuckle, and Steve cinched his eyes closed to stopper the tears suddenly pooling in his eyes. After years of hearing Bucky’s voice torn in a scream every night in his nightmares, the quiet laugh settled somewhere deep in his chest where a constant ache throbbed silently.

“I don’t know, Buck. I _am_ a national hero. Maybe I’ve got some crazy fans somewhere,” Steve joked—or tried to. His tone aimed at lighthearted, but missed the mark by a mile and hit brittle instead. Strangled, like all the words he couldn’t speak were clamouring in his throat and clawing to get out.

The silence stretched on, a cosmic judgment on the frailty of his voice. Neither sound nor movement stirred behind him, not even the rustle of a breeze. A suffocating fear enveloped Steve, closing around his throat, seeping into his chest, until the need to know that Bucky hadn’t disappeared again overrode the knowledge that there were some things he didn’t have to right to ask for. “Come—come back, Bucky. Come home with me. _Please_.”

The silence quivered with tension. The air behind him shuddered minutely, trembling against his skin, until it jolted with the current of a whisper so low he barely caught it. “I—I can’t.”

A choked noise tore out of Steve’s lungs before he could stop it. “Bucky, please. Please. I don’t—I don’t care what you did, what you do. You’re my friend, Bucky; you’re my best friend.”

“I can’t, Steve, I just can’t—you call me his name but it isn’t _mine_.”

“Yes it is, Bucky. Whatever they told you was _wrong_. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you’re my—”

“James Buchanan Barnes, aka Bucky Barnes, alias the Winter Soldier,” Bucky cut him off. His words were hissed low, barely loud enough to reach Steve’s straining ears, but the simmering anger in it scalded against Steve’s skin like a bolt of lightning. “DOB March 10, 1917. Home: Brooklyn, New York. Sergeant, 107th regiment. Friend and partner to Steven Grant Rogers, aka Steve Rogers, alias Captain America. Affiliated with the Howling Commandos. Fell into a ravine, 1944, presumed dead– it’s like a fucking mission file, Steve. I can tell you everything that’s ever been written about Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, but I can’t even tell you what his— _my_ —favourite colour is.”

“Blue,” Steve replied, the answer ready on his tongue before he realized he had drawn breath to speak. “Or well, it was blue, back then. I guess I can’t tell you what it is now.”

“That’s not the _point_ , Steve! Telling me won’t fix anything. I need to know on my own—I need to remember. I need to.” The edges of Bucky’s words shuddered and broke into pieces, seeping with unshed tears. Steve sucked in a breath, fighting against tears of his own. 

“Please, Bucky, I can help you—let me help you. Let me at least _try_ , please.” He was begging now, ready to fall to his knees and plead if he thought it might help; he didn’t care how desperate or pathetic he sounded anymore. The ache of missing Bucky grew every day, pressing against the cavity of his chest. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand it before his ribs crumpled under its weight and he imploded into himself. 

“I’m sorry, Steve. I can’t. I just can’t. Not—not yet.”

And Bucky was gone.

Steve couldn’t have said how he knew—the nothingness at his six was still nothing, after all, and Bucky didn’t make a sound—but Steve felt his absence the moment Bucky left. The empty darkness that greeted his eyes when he finally dared to turn around only confirmed his suspicions. He let the tears finally fall, a secret promised between himself and the lightless silence keeping him company.

The stars slowly woke in the night, blinking sleepily in the sky, looking down at one tired old soldier standing motionless at the foot of his friend’s grave. His shoulders were hunched and his head lowered, his body curled to shield the yawning cavity in his chest where a frail bud of hope grew, watered by his grief. Two words echoed breathless in the air around him: _not yet_. Not a no, not a never, just _not yet_. Two words that weren’t quite enough, but had be. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: [You're not going to get anywhere staring at my grave, you know.](http://writeworld.org/post/125000586614/youre-not-going-to-get-anywhere-staring-at-my)  
> Shoutout to kerosenekate, sockmonkeydogtoy, starsandscars44, and carohdanvers on tumblr for helping me edit!  
> Comments/feedback always appreciated :D


End file.
